


Broken Glass

by Contra



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Basically my version of S2, Kind of fucked up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 17:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17533421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Contra/pseuds/Contra
Summary: The top search result is "Frank Castle Killed during Police Shoot-out in Central Park" and everything around Billy just - stops. In the past few months, he's had to re-learn how to walk and to function and to live with the fact that that his mind is stuck in 2015. Clicking on that link is harder than all of these things combined.Frank is dead, it says. It takes a while until Billy can take in the rest of the article. There's a picture of a carousel, barely piercing through the blur and something stirs in his memory. That's what they were making plans for over the phone.(Basically, no way does Billy not google Frank as soon as he can)





	Broken Glass

**Author's Note:**

> I AM OBSESSED WITH THE PUNISHER OKAY
> 
> Like holy shit Jon Bernthal is so fucking hot.

The last thing Billy remembers is Frank.

(He should have known right then. He should have known the only _other_ thing he remembers is also Frank. It’s always Frank in his head.)

Frank on the phone with him – Maria and the kids in the background shouting “hey Billy”, “how are you Billy?”, they were making plans, Billy thinks, though he can’t remember for what.

He also can’t remember what happened next, but he still knows enough of himself to guess that he probably collapsed on whatever cheap Ikea bed he owned at the time and jerked off and hated himself.

 

Frank isn’t coming to visit him at the hospital. Curtis does and Curtis doesn’t mention Frank and Billy’s been long enough in the Army to think-

(oh no, oh please no, oh God)

There’s been a dull ache in Billy’s skull ever since he woke up, no wonder, his face got bashed in, his ribcage, his spine. None of that feels like this. Billy asks “how is Frank?” and is grateful his voice has viable reason to shake.

Curt doesn’t answer.

 

It’s the first thing he googles once he’s out. He’s sitting in some fucked up dark alleyway, got no shoes and a phone he stole from some guy and no idea about anything whatsoever and the fact remains, he types in “Frank Castle” long before he types in his own name.

They’re saying Frank is dead.

They’re saying Frank is a murderer.

They’re saying Maria is dead and the kids, that Frank watched them die, that he survived and went on a killing spree, there are pictures of the trial and Billy franctically searches for his own face in the crowd, doesn’t find it, collapses.

It can’t be.

It can’t be.

It’s impossible.

Frank can’t be dead.

 

 

Billy doesn’t know how he manages to drag himself to the VA, it takes every ounce of control that he has not to-

(implode)

(explode)

(it can’t be it can’t be it can’t be)

 

Curtis finds him there, crouched into the smallest corner in the back of the room.

“Billy,” he says. His voice is entirely flat. There is something in his eyes Billy can’t read. Not that it matters.

“Why didn’t you tell me that Frank is dead?”

Curtis looks surprised at that, eyebrows drawing together, and Billy wants to… Billy wants to rip him apart. Billy wants to shake him until none of this is real anymore. Billy wants Frank.

“And Maria? And the kids?” Billy’s voice is breaking. “They were like my family, Curt. Fuck. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t- What the fuck happened? Just what is going on?” He can hear himself getting louder, but somehow he can’t stop.

Curt huffs out a laugh and it sounds so profoundly bitter that for the first time Billy notices, Curtis hates him. Genuinely hates him. Billy doesn’t even know why.

“Curt, please,” he whispers and he’s begging. The dull ache behind his eyes gets harder and sharper and he thinks he can’t hold it together for long. “Just tell me what happened. How did he-”

Curtis doesn’t say anything for a very long time.

“Please, Curt,” and Billy’s voice is almost gone for good this time. He babbles something, something that he hopes reminds Curt of a tiny scrap of goodwill for Billy left over from whatever bullshit Billy blew it on.

Finally, he can see Curt lose the fight with himself.

“You killed them. You killed them all.”

 

It’s not real, the way none of this is real, which is to say it probably is. For a second, Billy chokes.

“What?”

It makes sense then, how Curt is looking at him, and Billy has never seen Curt look like this at anyone. In fact, it’s probably the only way it _could_ make sense, which is another point toward it being the truth.

“You really don’t remember, do you? You did it all, for power and some cash.”

Reality fractures, then.

* * *

 

 

“I’m sorry, I can’t help you, Billy,” Curtis says, and Billy nods. His head splits apart, like a balloon bursting along ugly, scarred seams. Billy can feel his brain matter seep out into into the shitty cheap carpet and the last thing he thinks of is Frank.

He dies right there on the spot.

* * *

 

 

Except that doesn’t happen and Curtis still hates him but he says,

“Frank is alive. He’s going to kill you, but he’s alive.”

And the thing is, it’s the best thing Billy has heard, ever. Frank is alive. Frank is alive.

He thinks, this is the only way I can live with this. Or well, maybe not live. But it’s the next best thing.

* * *

 

 

He hides out in some dark warehouse in Harlem and knows, Frank will find me.

Closes his eyes.

He thinks of Maria, the way she always smiled, her casual hand touching Frank’s arm, god he hated her. Liked her. He wouldn’t have thought that he would kill her, but if that's the way it happened, he guesses it makes sense.

For a moment, he considers texting Curt his location so he can pass it on to Frank. But he remembers loving Curt, too, not the way he loved Frank, but a whole lot anyway, and thinks it would be cruel. You don’t make your friend an accomplice in your own murder.

* * *

 

 

Still, waiting for Frank is agony.

(It’s better than not waiting for Frank.)

Billy’s left some clues outside, the Samaritan pedo with a broomstick in his chest, and another who rented him the warehouse with the thought that Billy wanted it as a porn movie set.

It can’t be long now.

He pulls the phone out again.

* * *

 

 

On Youtube, he finds clips of Frank’s trial, Frank in an orange jumpsuit, footage of Frank jumping over a car. He also finds one titled “Ex-Marine Billy Russo Talks About Frank Castle The Punisher On WHiH World News.”

Billy doesn’t recognize that version of himself. He looks good, like the kind of guy he always used to envy, handsome and successful and cool. They keep cutting in pictures of Frank while TV-Billy gives his interview, promises that he will try his best to catch Frank and Billy laughs at the thought that their roles were, apparently, reversed. Just for once, Billy was the one who had everything and Frank nothing. It feels almost like a revanche.

Except there’s no revanche for games you haven’t lost yet.

The TV presenter is insufferably blonde and she has that barely-conceiled glee in her voice that these people always get when they talk about tragedies.

“One last question Mr. Russo. If Castle was standing here right now, what would you say to him?”

Perfect Billy on the tiny phone screen looks unfazed and professional as he asks - “What happened, Frank?”

Fucked-up Billy is in a cold warehouse and doesn’t know the man with his own face, but he knows he must have set that up as a joke for himself and he laughs out as he thinks – me.

* * *

 

And maybe this is how Frank finds him, clutching the screen because Frank is everything, and if Billy is going to die, then he’s going to spend his last minutes looking at videos of Frank-

* * *

 

 

Except he looks up and Frank is there and he hates him and is the most beautiful thing in the world.

“Frank, I’m so sor-” Billy starts and Frank shoots off his face.

* * *

 

 

Except Billy doesn’t let him, if he’s going to die, it’s with Frank’s blood under his fingernails, ripping at his skin as if he’s trying to climb inside it.

* * *

 

 

Except Frank doesn’t let him and Billy loves him and it’s the only thing in the world.

They’re fighting and Billy throws Frank’s gun away - it’s never this easy to disarm Frank, not unless he's not really trying, but Frank still also wants to rip Billy apart.

The phone crashes to the floor somehow, and Billy can see the spiderweb cracks over his perfect TV face, Frank digs his short blunt fingernails into the barely healed scar tissue, it makes blood run from Billy’s temples into his eyes.

He sees the skull again and Frank is the skull of course, because Frank has always been the only true thing in Billy's head and they're way past the lies now.

I love you, Billy doesn’t say, please kill me, but Frank hears it anyway and there are only two possibilities, either he can do it or he cannot, and both are love in their way.


End file.
